Who are the children of Pariacaca? Exploring identity through narratives of water and landscape in Huarochirí, Peru Sarah Bennison Thesis submitted for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy School of Modern Languages, Newcastle University April 2016 ii Abstract: Based on AHRC-funded interdisciplinary research, this thesis explores cultural identity in the Peruvian Andes through the highly expressive domain of water practice in the Spanish-speaking Huarochirí province in the highlands of Lima. The thesis makes an original contribution to scholarship on Latin American society through exposing discontinuities between the ways that international and national (Peruvian State) law describe and define ancestral ‘indigenous’ groups, compared with the emic expression of identity ‘on the ground’. As elsewhere in the Andean highlands, Huarochiranos express cultural difference vis-à-vis outsiders through their conviction that the local landscape is animate and has agency. Through detailed analysis of Spanish language narratives recorded during in depth fieldwork in 2012, the thesis illuminates the ways in which highlanders in this non-indigenous province express animate landscape in a non-indigenous tongue. Of particular interest are irrigators' relationships with their local environment and the beings which dwell in it, and emerge from it as well as the vocabulary which they employ to describe the landscape. Through this approach, the thesis builds on the work of Marisol De la Cadena (2010) by proposing that debates concerning ‘Indigenous Cosmopolitics’ are applicable to groups who do not necessarily define themselves as indigenous or speak an indigenous language. Informed by postcolonial theory, this research explores the effects of cultural change and continuity – within the context of infrastructural development and associated nation-building processes – on language loss, irrigation-focused ritual discourse and attitudes towards water. The thesis is also framed against the historical literary backdrop of the famous so-called Huarochirí Manuscript (c.1608).This unique colonial Quechua document of indigenous authorship deriving from the same region contains information on the cultural elaboration of water in the early colonial era and represents an unparalleled source for understanding the indigenous past in the Andes. iii iv For Alf v vi Acknowledgements This research was generously funded by the Arts and Humanities Research Council over 4 years (award number 994394, block grant number AH/1507256/1). I was also given two separate awards from the Santander Mobility Fund which allowed me to carry out in-depth fieldwork, and then to disseminate my work at a conference in Lima. I am grateful for this financial support. Many people have helped me through my thesis and so I have many people to thank. Firstly, thanks to my supervisors, Rosaleen Howard and Patricia Oliart. Thank you both for your support, encouragement and patience. Above all, thank you for the academic guidance and enthusiasm that you put into this project. I appreciate the work you put into giving me detailed feedback on chapter drafts and I hope that some of that transmitted wisdom shines through in this thesis. Secondly, heartfelt thanks go to my family for their support and for encouraging me not to give up. Without the help my Mum (Ginny Bennison) and Dad (Graham Bennison) gave me through my final year this thesis could not have been completed. I owe thanks to Craig (‘Gregorio’) Huddart, my former husband, for accompanying me through fieldwork, making me laugh throughout and for doing more than his fair share of caring for our son Alfie during those months. I owe thanks to the Huddart-McLoughlin family for their support and especially to Dave and Theresa Huddart, without whose help with childcare I could not have carried out this project. I would like to take this opportunity to thank Sarah Patterson of the Newcastle University Student Wellbeing service for her emotional support during my return from maternity leave and for teaching me the value of having time to myself. I also owe thanks to the Student Disability Team for their continued support, and to Sarah Leahy of the School of Modern Languages for her support too. vii Nina Laurie and Penny Harvey examined this thesis and gave me valuable feedback for which I am extremely grateful. I also need to thank Sabine Dedenbach-Salazar Sáenz for encouraging me to do a PhD and for her continued interest in my research. I would also like to say thanks to Robin Humphrey for his encouragement during my time at Newcastle University. I am grateful for the logistical assistance and cooperation of the Muncipalidad Distrital de San Damián, whose staff assisted in providing me with somewhere to work, informed me of upcoming events, and allowed me to use their facilities to advertise and carry out focus groups. Among the countless friends in San Damián to whom I am indebted, I would like to express my gratitude to Luciano Alejandro for generously providing me with local texts, to the Belen-Matos family for their kindness and to the Belen-Ricse family in Sydney for their friendship too. To Eugenio Anchelía Llata for telling me all about his extraordinary life and to Rosa Ríos and Rosa Alejandro for supporting my research with their time, friendship and valuable insights. This project has also brought me the pleasure of conversing with and learning from Véliz Alberco Cuya, a scholar from Santiago de Tuna. Thank you also to my friends at Newcastle University who accompanied me throughout this PhD. Special thanks go to Fernando Gonzáles-Velarde who helped with some difficult transcriptions and proof-reading and to everyone in the former Americas Research Group who read and gave feedback on my work. Last, but not least, thanks to Mike Proud for his support, love, PowerPoint skills and for regularly massaging my hand until his own hurt too. I dedicate this thesis to my son Alfie and to the people of San Damián, without whose generosity and friendship this research would not have been possible. viii Table of Contents Acknowledgements .................................................................................................................... vii Table of Contents ......................................................................................................................... ix Table of Figures ........................................................................................................................... xiii Chapter 1. Introduction ............................................................................................................... 1 1.1 The people called Indians ............................................................................................... 6 1.1.1 The children of Pariacaca become indians ....................................................... 7 1.1.2 The descendants of the people called Indians ............................................. 11 1.2 Learning to be indigenous: ethnic revaluation and the context of prior consultation law ..................................................................................................................... 12 1.3 Indians no more: ethnic discrimination and the Agrarian Reform of 1969 15 1.4 You are what you speak: the significance of language for the identification of indigenous peoples in Peru .......................................................................................... 17 1.5 Thesis Outline ................................................................................................................... 24 Chapter 2. Mestizo Cosmopolitics in the Andes: grounded reflections beyond indigeneity .................................................................................................................................... 27 2.1 The nature of thinking about culture with water ................................................ 33 2.2 Framing water as a window into Andean society ............................................... 40 2.3 Taking the abuelos for granted .................................................................................. 44 2.4 A narrative channel for remembering ..................................................................... 51 2.5 “I would like to tell you about something which does exist in all the villages of Huarochirí” .......................................................................................................................... 57 2.6 Conclusions ....................................................................................................................... 65 Chapter 3. Methodological Discussion: voyaging into cosmopolitics via irrigation ritual ................................................................................................................................................ 67 3.1 Ethnography ..................................................................................................................... 69 ix 3.2 Preparation for fieldwork.............................................................................................. 71 3.3 Spanish language and interaction with the locality ............................................ 73 3.4 Meeting people ................................................................................................................ 74 3.4.1 Representativeness of this research ................................................................. 75 3.5 Attending irrigation rituals..........................................................................................